Gambians in the US who may fall under undocumented migrants may soon find themselves in danger of deportation.

President Donald Trump on Friday confirmed that potentially 2,000 undocumented immigrants will be swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in raids beginning yesterday.

“It starts on Sunday and [ICE is] gonna take people out and they’re going to bring them back to their countries or they’re gonna take criminals out, put them in prison, or put them in prison in the countries they came from,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing to an event in Wisconsin — he was joined by secretary of labor Alex Acosta, who earlier in the day announced his resignation

. “We’re focused on criminals as much as we can… we’re taking them out by the thousands, we’re getting them out.”

On Thursday, The New York Times cited three anonymous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials who discussed the plan to detain and deport families who have received a deportation notice, and “collateral” immigrants who happen to be near the raids at the time — potentially detaining children.

Matthew Bourke, an ICE spokesperson, said in a Thursday statement to TIME that the agency would not discuss details related to enforcement operations. “As always, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.

However, all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and—if found removable by final order—removal from the United States.”

Agents from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement are launching major raids in a dozen cities this weekend aimed at deporting some 2,000 undocumented immigrants.

And in case you credited President Trump when he said it’s foolish to telegraph a major operation by announcing it in advance, never mind.

Mr. Trump himself did the telegraphing.

“There’s nothing to be secret about,” said the president, who called Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf a “disgrace” when she gave advance notice about raids in her city a few months ago. “If the word gets out, it gets out,” he said.

It got out.

Mr. Trump suggested the raids would be “focused on criminals as much as we can,” which would be fine if it were true.

In fact, Homeland Security officials who confirmed the planned operation to the New York Times said the roundups would mainly target migrant families.

ICE is an enforcement agency and is within its rights to deport undocumented migrants who have been ordered removed after receiving due process of law. These planned deportations, however, are mainly for show.

There are two main audiences. One is the nativists in Mr. Trump’s political base, who may have noticed that despite his huffing and puffing — and very likely partly because of it — undocumented migrants are entering the country at a rate unseen in more than a decade.

That has evidently left the president in need of an ostentatious way to show he is turning the tide.

The other audience is prospective migrants in Central America, whom the administration would like to deter by sending the message, with its deportation show of force, that trekking across the border is likely to be costly and ultimately fruitless.

Yet it seems unlikely that the planned deportations, albeit highly publicized, will offset the reality of 11?million undocumented immigrants who continue living in the United States, in most cases as law-abiding and productive members of their communities, where their labor is in demand.